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JOY IN SERVICE. 



FORGETTING, AND PRESSING 
ONWARD. 

UNTIL THE DAY DAWN. 
Rev. GEORGE T. PURVES, D. D., LL. D. 

THE TEACHER AND PASTOR. 
Prest. F. L. Patton, D. D., LL. D. 




AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY 

150 Nassau Street, New York 









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CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Joy in Service, 7 

"Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the 
will of him that sent me, and to finish his 
work." 

Forgetting, and Pressing Onward, . 45 

"Forgetting these things which are behind, 
and reaching forth to those things which 
are before, I press towards the mark for 
the prize of the high calling of God in 
Christ Jesus." 

" Until the Day Dawn," ... 83 

" The things which are not seen are eternal." 



The Teacher and Pastor, . . .87 

Address of Dr. P. L. Patton, at the funeral of 
Dr. Purves. 



I 



JOY IN SERVICE. 



Jesus saith unto them. My meat is to do 
the will of him that sent me, and to finish his 
?£/i7r/&."— John 4: 34. 



JOY IN SERVICE. 



This is one of the sentences 
that dropped from the lips of 
Christ, which let us into his per- 
sonal spiritual life and in some 
measure lay bare his mind. To 
be permitted thus to share his 
confidence is one of our greatest 
privileges. Viewing him from a 
distance, we may admire his char- 
acter ; viewing him in history, we 
may confess his incomparable 
power ; viewing him when convin- 
cing us of our own sin, we may 
adore him as our Saviour ; but 



8 in Service^ 



we desire, and may have, a still 
more intimate acquaintance. He 
tells us about himself. He de- 
scribes here and there his personal 
inner life. He permits us to share 
his secrets, and all that we other- 
wise feel of reverence, admiration, 
and gratitude gives new value to 
these disclosures of the spiritual 
life of the God in man. 

Now, in the words before us, 
Christ describes his joy in the serv- 
ice of the Father. They reveal 
a devotion so complete as to en- 
tirely control his mind. They 
reveal a soul so absorbed in doing 
the Divine will as to be insensible 
for the time to ordinary physical 
needs. They reveal a self-conse- 
cration which is absolute, and yet 
which is so spontaneous and glad 
as to be self-sustaining ; so that 



3ov in Ser\>ice. 9 



Christ needed no other support in 
serving the. Father than simply 
the opportunity of such service. 
We, on the contrary, require sup- 
port to en?i6le us to serve. We 
must be rewarded for our work, 
must be encouraged by sympathy, 
must be fed with promises and 
spiritual gifts, in order to be 
strong enough to do our duty. 
Christ found duty its own reward, 
service itself joy, obedience a 
source of renewed strength. His 
will was one with the Father's ; 
and thus he discloses the, to us, 
marvelous spectacle of one who 
could truly say, Not my desire or 
my duty, or my purpose is, but 
my meat — my food — my source 
itself of life and strength — is to do 
the will of God, and to finish h-is 
work. 



lo 50^ in Service* 



And yet our Lord Jesus was a 
very genuine man. He did not 
impress observers with the com- 
mon insignia of holiness. It was 
the Pharisees, not Christ, who 
stood at the corners of the streets 
to make long prayers, who en- 
larged the borders of their phy- 
lacteries and chose the chief seats 
in the synagogues. It was the 
Baptist, not Jesus, who clothed 
himself in a garment of camel's 
hair and ate locusts and wild 
honey. Jesus, on the contrary^ 
lived the outward life of other 
men, consorted with them in their 
usual places of resort, dressed and 
spake as they did ; so that, in out- 
ward manner, it was impossible to 
distinguish him from the common 
mass in which he moved. All the 
more precious, therefore, is this 



Joy tn Service* n 



revelation of his inner life. What 
a soul was his ! The thought up- 
permost in his mind was devotion 
to the Father's will. The joy 
which most gladdened his lonely 
life was the joy of unknown, but 
sublime and perfect, obedience. 
He had been pointing a Samaritan 
woman, sitting by the wellside, to 
the salvation of God ; and though 
she was but one, and that to human 
eyes an unworthy subject, — though 
she was a Samaritan and an open 
sinner, — his soul found such in- 
tense pleasure m bringing her — as 
the Father had sent him to bring 
men anywhere — to the knowledge 
of the truth, that fatiorue and hun- 
ger were forgotten, and all his 
energies were absorbed in the 
delight of the task. In this I think 
Christ appears simply Divine. No 



12 in Service, 



later fame or success, no gaudy 
robes of human praise, no gilded 
crown of human admiration, are 
needed to adorn him. He dis- 
closes the very ideal of a godly 
life. All our poor efforts at obedi- 
ence, all our faint aspirations after 
the knowledge and love of God, 
all our unfulfilled prayers, and 
falling flights, and unredeemed 
promises and sin-stained attempts 
to serve, confess the ideal perfect- 
ness of him who could truthfully 
say, " My meat is to do the will 
of him that sent me, and to finish 
his work." 

I. Let us first, then, draw a little 
closer to this peerless soul, in 
which there was such perfect sense 
of the worth of infinite things, and 
let us note more particularly, and 
appreciate as far as we are able, 



Jo^ in Service* 13 



this phase of the character of the 
Son of Man. 

I have said that Christ was a 
very natural man. But he was 
more than that. I am sure that 
none can study his character with- 
out admitting and admiring the 
perfect proportion in which truth 
evidently lay in his mind. This 
is one of the rarest beauties of 
character. Most of us are very 
one-sided. Wt can grasp but a 
part of ^^truthj and in order to 
grasp that part firmly, we have to 
absolutely let other truth go. In 
order to be devoted to duty as we 
see it, we commonly have to leave 
other duties untouched. Our spir- 
itual growth ought to take just 
this direction of including broader 
views of truth and duty, of ob- 
taining a conception of life in 



14 30^ in Bcvvicc. 



which the various elements shall 
be held in their proper relations 
and proportions ; no one allowed 
to eclipse the others, but each 
modified to a proper extent by the 
presence and influence of the rest. 
I say this is a rare achievement. 
No one but Christ has ever 
achieved it perfectly. It is eas)^ to 
see that even the apostles, inspired 
as they were, did not equally ap- 
preciate all sides of revelation. 
They have their distinguishing 
doctrines and points of view. 

It is still easier to see that 
Christian churches and theolo- 
gians differ for this same reason, 
and to a much greater extent. No 
creed, no church, no theology, that 
builds on the Word of God, can 
be wholly wrong. Its difference 
from others must lie in its partial 




50^ in Service* 15 



appreciation of the truth, in its in- 
ability to take in all truths in their 
relative proportion. And so in 
literature and science and philoso- 
phy some men are impressed with 
material evidences, others with 
moral. Some men are poets, 
others are logicians ; some criti- 
cal, others dogmatic. The hope 
of the future for the Church and 
for humanity is in the slow ap- 
proximation and combination of 
these partial views, until at last, 
in the unity of the faith and of 
the knowledge of the Son of God, 
we shall come unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the stature of 
the fullness of Christ." Mean- 
while, at the beginning of our Chris- 
tian history, Christ stands perfect. 
To see this is to appreciate his 
authority. As Paul said, He is 



7 



i6 5o^ in Service* 



' the corner stone of the spiritual 
temple which the Divine Spirit is 
building. 

I do not mean that he taught 
explicitly all the truth which later 
times have discovered, or which 
after him apostles taught. But 
he laid the living germs of all 
later religious truth, and he held 
them in such perfect proportion 
that when the long course of his- 
tory shall be finished, when that 
which is in part shall have been 
done away, and that which is per- 
fect shall have come, the result will 
be but the reproduction on a large 
scale of the already perfect stature 
of Christ. 

And this is particularly mani- 
fested in Christ's views of life. 
His peerless spirituality did not 
make him an ascetic. His clear 



30^ in Service^ 17 



vision of the future did not lead 
him to despise the present. His 
love of God did not destroy his 
love of nature or of man. His 
hatred of sin did not cause him to 
shun the sinner. Hence, though 
our Lord was the model of a reli- 
gious man, he was no enthusiast, 
still less a fanatic. The enthu- 
siast is a man who sees but part of 
truth and magnifies it out of its 
proportion ; and the fanatic is one 
who, in addition to this, hates what 
he cannot understand. According 
to Isaac Taylor, " Fanaticism is 
enthusiasm inflamed by hatred." 
But Christ exaggerated nothing 
and hated no man. He hated sin, 
but no sinner. His boundless, 
tender love itself prevented such 
moral distortion. And, therefore, 
he is the ideal or model of human 



i8 in Service^ 



life. We do not feel that in striv- 
ing to imitate even his most spir- 
itual qualities we shall become 
impractical or unnatural. We do 
not feel this in the case of most 
other holy men. They become 
examples of one virtue by exag- 
gerating it. But Christ never did 
this. Lofty as the view of life was 
which he discloses in our text, sub- 
lime as was its spiritual consecra- 
tion, it existed in him in harmony 
with the life which by its thor- 
oughly human and practical fea- 
tures proves that we too, in at 
least some measure, can make 
even his highest traits our ex- 
emplars. Look, therefore, at this 
text which discloses his mind, and 
mark its principal elements. 

I. There is first disclosed the 
strong and constant consciousness 



30^5 in Service^ 



19 



that he had a distinct errand in 
the world. He knew that he had 
been born for a purpose, that a 
divine aim was in his coming, and 
that a positive result would follow 
his life. This sense of a definite 
errand was expressed by him on 
numerous occasions ; in some of 
them quite incidentally, and in 
others more directly. You re- 
member how, as a boy in the tem- 
ple, he said to his mother, " Wist 
ye not that I must be about my 
Father's business ?" You remem- 
ber how, at the marriage in Cana, 
he said to her again, " My hour is 
not yet come." So with that pre- 
cious phrase which on several occa- 
sions fell from his lips, The Son 
of Man is come to seek and to save 
that which is lost." He regarded 
himself as one sent from God ; 



20 5 015 in Service* 



and when his life was about over 
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and 
said, " Father, the hour is come ; I 
have glorified thee on the earth ; 
I have finished the work which 
thou gavest me to do." 

So in our text, My meat is to 
do the will of him that sent me, 
and to finish his work." He was 
here on a special errand, and that 
errand was always before his mind. 
Earth was but a place of appointed 
work. Life was to him an office, 
a stewardship. He had this con- 
sciousness, even when he seemed 
to be accomplishing nothing. It 
gave unity to all his acts and 
words. To Galilean peasants 
and to Jewish scribes he could 
speak with equal assurance, be- 
cause his errand was to both. Yet 
he knew its limitations. He said 



301? in Service* 21 



to the Syro-Phoenician woman, " I 
am not sent save to the lost sheep 
of the house of Israel." He had 
come do a special work among the 
Jews, and in that a work for all 
manjcind. He had not come to be 
glorified. He had not come to be 
ministered unto, but to minister. 
But he had come on a distinct 
errand ; and whatever- be your 
doctrine of Christ's person, you 
must confess that he considered 
himself no accident of history; 
that he did no if regard his life 
work as originating in his own 
choice ; that his sense of a mission 
did not come as an afterthought 
to hirn, or grow clear as he ad- 
vanced in life. He felt his special 
errand from the v start. It was 
always before his mind, so that 
life was to him the performance 



22 501? in Service^ 



of a given task and the fulfillment 
of an assigned duty. 

2. But furthermore, our text dis- 
closes that, to Christ's mind, this 
errand of his in the world derived 
its sanctity from the fact that it 
was the will or wish of his Father. 
Every man is governed by some 
controlling motive or class of mo- 
tives. The lowest of all is the 
motive of personal gain and pleas- 
ure, and the sorrows and sins of 
men chiefly spring from the tyr- 
anny of this degraded passion. 
Higher than it is the motive of 
pity and compassion, which may 
lead us to do good for the sake 
of benefiting others. This is the 
spring of much charity and philan- 
thropy, and, so far as it goes, it is 
of course to be commended. But 
there is a higher motive than even 



5os tn Service^ 



23 



it, and Christ reveals it to us here. 
It is the wish to do God's will. 
Such was his motive. To him the 
will of the Father was the perfect 
good. He knew of nothing nobler 
than it, so that the whole energy 
of his character consisted in the 
force of obedience. 

This phrase may carry us back 
to that time in the counsels of the 
Godhead when, as we conceive 
such matters, the Father deter- 
mined to save the world that had 
rebelled against him. The ques- 
tion was, where to find a Saviour ; 
and the spirit of the Divine Son 
was manifested in his self-dedica- 
tion to the work. He, too, loved 
man, but that was not his main mo- 
tive. He loved the Father. He ap- 
preciated the Father s wish to save. 
He gave himself to carry out that 



24 So^ in Setpice* 



wish. " Lo, I come," said he, 
" to do thy will, O God." Thus 
we may perceive, I think, the deep 
reality in the Divine Sonship of 
Christ ; and certainly on earth this 
was his controlling motive. He 
was obedient even unto death. 
To obey to the very least partic- 
ular the Father's will was the 
principle of his being. To him 
the Father's will was not hard, 
stern law, as we with our rebel- 
lious instincts so often regard it ; 
it was the Father's wish. When 
love exists between two persons, 
the will of one it is the other's joy 
to do, if possible. Love impels to 
its accomplishment. Love rejoices 
in being of service, in giving the 
loved one pleasure, in carrying 
out the other's desire. So the will 
of God was, to Christ, his Father's 



30^ in Service^ 25 



wish. Obedience was the main- 
spring of his soul's life, and his 
errand in the world derived its 
sanctity and its glory — in spite of 
man's antagonism and in spite of 
apparent fruitlessness — from the 
fact that it was the will of God. 
In this Christ discloses the very 
highest spiritual life which it is 
possible to conceive. How mar- 
velous was this ! He who has won 
the greatest influence over the 
race, he before whom the head 
bows in adoration, he who has 
changed already the course of his- 
tory, and will change it until every 
knee has bowed to him, was one 
whose supreme wish was to be an 
obedient Son. Instead of con- 
quering by selfishness he con- 
quered by self-abnegation. In- 
stead of doing his own work, he 



26 50^ in Service. 



gave himself up to doing his 
Father's. Here is at once a mira- 
cle of history and a model of life 
of which man would never have 
dreamed. 

3. As a consequence of all this 
we can perceive in the language 
of the text Christ's joy in the dis- 
covery of a special opportunity of 
carrying out the highest purpose 
of the Father's will. It would 
seem that his meeting with the 
Samaritan woman awakened al- 
most a state of excitement in his 
mind. It lifted him above the 
reach of physical desires. This I 
suppose was because he recognized 
in that meeting an opportunity of 
doing what he knew was dearest 
to his Father's heart. His errand 
was to ultimately save the world, 
and now he was engaged in saving 



5os in ^cxvicc. 



27 



at least one soul. No doubt his 
devotion to the Father s will sus- 
tained him, even in the darkest 
hour. When the will of God con- 
signed him to the hatred of men, 
to the rejection of the people, 
to the bitter sorrow of the cross, 
he could bow his head in humble 
compliance and say, Thy will, 
not mine, be done." But he knew 
well that the Father willed his 
sorrows in order to the world's 
salvation, and that the object 
dearest to the Father's heart was 
the recovery of lost souls. He 
himself has told us of the angels' 
joy over such. And he has de- 
scribed the whole object of his ap- 
pearing to man by these matchless 
words : God so loved the world 
that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth in 



28 in Service. 



him might not perish, but have 
everlasting life." And therefore 
his love of God the Father, no 
less than his love of man, made 
him hail with especial joy such an 
opportunity as this. We may 
fairly say that Christ followed the 
lead of providence. He did him- 
self what he requires of us ; he 
was quick to recognize opportuni- 
ties. He heard in them a divine 
call ; and by all his sense of his 
mission among men, by all his de- 
sire to please the Father, did he 
hail the rising faith of that Sa- 
maritan and rejoice in bringing 
to her the message of salvation. 
Hence I say his evident excite- 
ment, if we may use the phrase. 
Hence his obliviousness to hun- 
ger. Hence his forgetfulness of 
his former fatigue. Lift up 



5op in Service. 29 



your eyes," he cried to his disci- 
ples, "and look on the fields, 
for they are white already unto 
harvest." The Father's will would 
be accomplished, and in the joy of 
service his soul found its food. 
He wanted nothing else. Such 
fruitful obedience was to him its 
own reward. 

I say again, therefore, what a 
spiritual life was this ! Praise it- 
self seems almost to defile it. It 
was perfect. It was sublime. 
Thus can we understand his sin- 
lessness. We can imaoine no 
higher ideal ; and marvelous to 
say, here was the ideal realized. 
We cannot wonder any longer 
that over this Jesus of Nazareth 
God should say, ''This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." 



5op in Service. 



II. And now, while admiring, 
we are to ask if it is possible for us 
to imitate in principle this spirit- 
ual life, of which the Master gave 
so fine an example. Possibly, you 
may say, we may imitate some of 
the least remarkable traits, but 
scarcely this. And 3^et this lies 
at the root and soul of the rest: 
imitation of them is but external 
and spurious if it does not reach 
this. Only by this can we have 
real fellowship with him. 

We are met at the outset by 
mane's natural reluctance to even 
think of regarding the will of 
God as aught but repulsive. Very 
often objection is openly made to 
the spiritual view expressed by 
Christ. God, it is said, must surely 
want to educate us into the love 
of virtue and truth for their own 



Sop in Serpice* 31 



sakes. He does not want merely 
to conquer .us, to break our wills 
by superior power. He wants to 
lead us to share his own spirit and 
life; and, therefore, would not ask 
us to submit merely to his will. 
To train men, therefore, to merely 
obey is not so noble as to train 
men to reason, or to love truth and 
righteousness for their own sakes. 
But we reply that we should attain 
to the most exalted love of truth 
and righteousness and every other 
noble thing in no way so well as 
through loyalty to God. Cer- 
tainly God does not want to merely 
conquer us by force, but of all 
things in the world that is the one 
not exhibited in Jesus Christ. 
His was the obedience of love. It 
sprang from his admiration of the 
Father's nature. And so must 



32 Joi? in Service* 



ours. God has laid us under im- 
measurable obligations of grati- 
tude. He has condescended to re- 
veal himself to us. He has given 
proof of his wisdom, his love, his 
holiness, his righteousness. And, 
therefore, the will of God is no 
arbitrary commandment., It is the 
wish of our dearest Ftiend. It 
is the direction given from the 
world's Pilot. It is the direction 
of infinite wisdom and righteous- 
ness and love ; and to be devoted 
to his win is but to be confident 
that all his glorious attributes are 
being expressed for our guidance. 

And then, what should we say 
of one who seeks after truth 
and righteousness, and yet does 
not yield obedience to him who is 
the source of all things — the truth, 
the righteousness ? We should 



50^ in Service^ 33 



probably conclude that his search 
was a fancy, his aspiration an illu- 
sion. No ! What we need is to 
love the Lord our God with all 
our heart, to feel that he is the 
wisest, the most lovely — the em- 
bodiment and the source of all 
other wisdom and goodness ; the 
Sun by which the other planets 
shine, by whose rays the world of 
nature receives its life and beauty. 
We need to love God supremely ; 
and if we do, then the will of God 
will seem to us always good, even 
as it did to Christ. 

Man's weakness, waiting upon God, ■ 

Its end can never miss; 
For men on earth no work can do 

More angel-like than this. 

He always wins who sides with God. 
To him no chance is lost; 



34 in Service* 



&od's will is sweetest to him when 
It triumphs at his cost. 

** 111 that he blesses is our good, 
And unblessed good our ill; 
And all is right that seems most wrong. 
If it be his sweet will." 

Let man behold, through Christ, 
the infinite Father, the source of 
all life and blessedness and good, 
and man will put God first, and 
find his highest glory in acting 
out the prayer, ** Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven." 

But even so, we are met by 
the further difficulty that, unlike 
Christ, we are not always sensi- 
ble of being sent on any special 
errand into the world. We lose 
what aim we have, amid the diver- 
sities of toil to which we are com- 
pelled. We lose what breadth of 



in Scvvicc. 35 



j view we have, amid the multitude 
of trifles of which our lives are 
composed. We can imagine 
Christ's sense of his mission, and 
how it could absorb him ; "but 
what in our lots can correspond? 
It may indeed be true that, un- 
like Christ, you have no clear 
idea of why God sent you into 
the world. Few have, but it 
would seem to quite remove God 
from actual government of the 
world to say that, therefore, he 
had no purpose. That glowing 
picture which the apostle paints 
of the rising temple should for- 
bid the doubt. Every stone has 
its place and is needed. It may 
need to be broken and hewn, to 
be polished ; it may be hid in an 
I unseen place within the wall ; no 
I man may notice it. But the 



36 Jop in Service. 



Builder meant it to be there, and 
it contributes its share to the 
work before which the ages of 
eternity shall fall in wonder ; that 
work which is to manifest to the 
principalities and powers in the 
heavenly places the manifold wis- 
dom of God. We may dismiss 
the doubt therefore, since God is 
God. We have been made and 
sent here for a purpose. God's 
will is meaning to use us, and it 
is our duty and privilege now to 
carry out, as far as possible, that 
will of him that sent us, so far as 
he has made it known. And cer- 
tainly, brother man, enough of 
the Father's will is made known 
to teach us our work. 

We may rejoice to do his vnW 
as revealed m conscience. He has 
placed within the soul of man a 



Sop in Service^ 



37 



guide which, within certain limits, 
and as applied to special acts and 
circumstances, infallibly indicates 
his will. So far as it acts, no man 
can say he is ignorant ; and the 
true child of God will give heed 
and say, This is the will of God." 
Conscience will itself be re-en- 
forced by being so regarded; and 
it is practically impossible to 
question conscience, as to most 
of the practical duties of life, 
without plainly hearing, This 
is the way." 

But we may further rejoice to 
do his will as revealed m Scrip- 
hire. Here he has gone beyond 
the starlight of conscience and 
flooded the world with the sun- 
light of his revelation. The 
Scriptures contain the will of 
God for our salvation. They 



38 Jo^ in Service, 



speak in no doubtful tone. We 
may be as certain as Jesus was 
what the will of the Father is. 
Paul called himself an apostle 
''by the will of God" ; so may we. 
" This is the work of God, that 
ye believe on him whom he hath 
sent." It is the will of God that 
we trust him, that we serve him, 
that we be holy as he is holy, that 
we extend his knowledge. These 
are as absolute commands as are 
those of the Decalogue ; and the 
true child will take this revela- 
tion for his guidance, and by its 
light will try to carry out his 
Fathers will. 

But you may say, " Much of 
this direction is general, it is not 
specific. What is the specific 
will of God for me ? " I answer 
therefore, finall3^ that we may, like 



30^ in SetPice. 



39 



Christ, rejoice to do his will as 
revealed m providence. I have 
tried to show that even Christ 
followed where the Father led, 
embraced opportunities, met new 
circumstances, prepared for ''the 
hour." And certainly we are to 
do so. The will of God for each 
one of us is unfolded by the 
events of life. These are not 
causeless. They are not a chance 
medley of good and bad. God 
rules : not a sparrow falls with- 
out him. And therefore, as provi- 
dence unrolls the will of God for 
us, the true child is to accept and 
obey. Now he brings an oppor- 
tunity ; now he lays a burden. 
Now he tries us with prosperity ; 
now with sorrow. Now he sends 
us into battle and temptation ; now 
he lays us on beds of pain and 



40 50^ in Service. 



idleness. Now he wounds, and 
now he heals ; the way opens 
under his Divine guidance. It 
may lift us up, it may cast us 
down. As with Christ, I say, so 
with us. It may give us a soul 
to save, it may cause our plans to 
be rejected, it may lead to Geth- 
semane, it may translate us to 
glory ; but in all it is the will of 
him that sent us, the work he has 
for us to do. In all, infinite wis- 
dom, the Fathers goodness, and 
eternal righteousness move. He 
shows the way, and man's highest 
privilege — yea, man's strength and 
food — is to do his will, because we 
love and trust and adore him so 
entirely that what he wishes, that 
we are glad to do. 

I hold, therefore, before us 
Christ's joy in service as not be- 



30^ in Service* 41 



yond our power to imitate ; and I 
ask if conscience and reason do 
not testify that this is the loftiest 
ideal in life which we can have. 
When we reach heaven, this will 
be realized. But here, in the 
desert, now, in this world of sin, 
is the time to begin. I do not 
show you so exalted a Jesus as to 
put him beyond the reach of imi- 
tation. He came to make us like 
himself. And I ask if any other 
ideals of life can compare with this 
— if they are not poor and mean 
— if this does not soar above 
them. You claim to seek nobility 
and greatness and victory. Here 
they are. Come, learn from 
Jesus the love of God. Let it 
win your heart ; and as at his 
feet you look in that infinite, eter- 
nal sea of love, whose depths are 



42 501? in Service. 



fathomless and whose billows 
break on the shores of time — that 
love of God to man out of which 
Christ came to save our souls by 
death — as you gaze on it, rise 
with this resolve : "By thy grace, 
O Christ, I too will joy to do the 
will of him that sent me, and to 
finish his work." 



FORGETTING, AND 
PRESSING FORWARD, 



'* Forgetting those things which are behind, 
and reaching forth unto those things which 
are before, I press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God in Christ 
Philippians 3:13, 14- 



FORGETTING, 
AND 

PRESSING ONWARD. 



We are not to take the first 
part of this text too literally, nor 
press the apostle's words too 
closely. He certainly did not 
mean to say that he had forgotten 
all his past life and blotted out 
the memory of all that lay behind 
him. The Bible must be inter- 
preted naturally, as you would 
interpret the language of ordinary 
writers. If we were to take texts 



— ^ 

46 fforoetting, anb 



out of their connections and press 
the literal meaning of every clause 
and word, we would soon make 
the book a bundle of contradic- 
tions and reduce it to an actual 
absurdity. Unfortunately this has 
sometimes been done, and not 
a few of the differences of opinion 
which believers of the Bible have 
among themselves arise from 
such false and unreasonable 
methods of interpretation. So^ 
as I have said, Paul did not mean 
that he had really forgotten the 
things that lay behind him. In 
fact, he refers again and again to 
his past life and experience. In 
this very chapter he relates his 
pedigree. Often he refers to his 
state of mind before he became 
a Christian — to his spiritual unrest 
and vain efforts after peace. Still 



pressing ©nwarb» 47 



oftener does he recount the story 
of his conversion, and hold him- 
self up to all ages as a miracle of 
grace and a monument of Divine 
mercy. He was very far, there- 
fore, from having forgotten the 
way along which he had been led. 
It had been too momentous both 
for himself and others. It had 
been too full of both storm and 
sunshine not to be worth remem- 
bering. It had written, as with a 
pen of steel, lessons of law and 
love upon the soul of the apostle, 
and in characters too deep ever to 
be obliterated. 

What, then, did Paul mean 
when he here describes himself 
as " forgetting those things which 
are behind and reaching forth 
unto those things which are be- 
fore"? He meant his language 



48 foroettlna, an& 



to be understood comparatively 
and relatively. He was thinking 
chiefly of the new life which had 
been opened before him by Jesus 
Christ, and of the enthusiasm and 
devotion with which he pursued 
it. He likens himself to a contest- 
ant in a foot-race, whose eye is 
bent on the track before him, not 
on that behind his back — who is 
ever measuring in thought the 
distance yet to be traveled until 
the prize is won. He meant, 
therefore, that he was so absorbed 
in the new pursuits and duties 
given him by Jesus Christ that 
his past life was comparatively 
forgotten. He did not mourn 
the honors in the Jewish Church 
which he had lost by becoming a 
Christian. He did not dwell upon 
the anger of his Hebrew friends. 



now that he had the friendship 
of Christ himself. He did not 
regret the sacrifice he had made, 
since a better reward had been 
bestowed upon him. He did not 
let past troubles hamper present 
actions, nor past successes cause 
him to rest upon his laurels, nor 
past services satisfy him, nor past 
losses embitter him. He turned 
resolutely to the future. He 
pushed ahead in his divinely 
appointed way. He let the dead 
past bury its dead, while he was 
absorbed in the living present and 
the coming future. Speaking rel- 
atively, in comparison with the 
absorbing business of his life, 
he could say, Forgetting those 
things which are behind and 
reaching forth unto those things 
that are before, I press toward the 



50 fovQCttirxQ, ant) 



mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." 

Thus understood, St. Paul's 
language becomes exceedingly 
suggestive of things that it is 
worth our while to forget, and 
the way in which we should for- 
get them. Like him, we are not 
required to blot out the remem- 
brance of the past. There could 
be no improvement if we did not 
remember past mistakes and 
profit by them. It is often our 
sweetest joy and highest pride 
to think of the days that are no 
more, of the wondrous history of 
mankind, of our own journey as 
Providence has led us on, and 
above all things, of him whom 
we are to hold in everlasting 
remembrance. But we must keep 
life's balance true. Some people 



are always living among the 
gravestones, regretting what is 
now inevitable, mourning over 
losses that cannot be repaired, 
thinking the days of old better 
than those which are to be — and 
wasting their energies in sorrow- 
ful reminiscences and wistful 
longings for a perished past, 
instead of using their energies 
in the accomplishment of what 
may be done for the winning of 
better crowns. It is against this 
practice that the apostle's experi- 
ence warns. This practice makes 
progress impossible. It is a 
source of misery. It fetters the 
Christian mind. It does not know 
that the resurrection has taken 
place. It makes life a threnody 
instead of a hosanna. We are to 
turn from the past that we may 



52 fforoettina, anD 

obtain the better future. Let me 
give you an example of the way 
in which we are to forget the 
things which are behind, and 
reach forth unto those things that 
are before. 

I. It is worth our while to for- 
get old doubts and questionings, 
through absorption in the prac- 
tical application of the truth 
brought us by Jesus Christ. 
Most of the doubts and question- 
ings which men have on the sub- 
ject of religion are very old. 
Their hair is gray with the anx- 
ious thought of many centuries. 
They may be represented by old 
men, with wrinkled foreheads and 
feeble knees, pretending by dress 
and manner to be young. But 
you would be surprised to find 
how old they are, these questions 



lPre66inG (S)nwar&* 53 



that disturb your religious faith 
and hinder jou from the per- 
formance of your whole duty. 

There, for instance, is that weary 
question about the reason why 
God allowed sin and misery to 
enter into his world — a question 
which men are still pondering, 
under which they are still restless 
and sometimes unhappy. But lo ! 
it is as old as human history. 
The ancient brahmins wrestled 
with it. We find it echoed in the 
hymns of Chaldea that date from 
the days of Abraham, in the songs 
of Greece, and in the literature of 
the age of Solomon ; and neither 
philosophy nor science, neither 
discovery nor accident, has to this 
day been able to frame a satisfac- 
tory answer. 

In like manner the question 



54 iforgetttna, an& 



how to harmonize in thought the 
absolute sovereignty of God, who 
ruleth over all and designed the 
end from the beginning, with the 
freedom and responsibility of 
man, is an ancient problem which 
no answer has been found able to 
finally solve. Hindoo philosophy 
settled it by fatalism, making man 
nothing and deities all. Greek 
thought vibrated between the two 
extremes ; and from the beginning 
of Christian history the problem 
has vexed the ingenuity and 
taxed the patience of the Church. 
It is not peculiar to Calvinism. 
It is a problem which has ever 
risen up before inquiring minds 
and baffled the wisdom of the 
greatest who have grappled with 
it. 

And so, too, most of the specific 



pressing ©nwart). 55 



doubts about and objections to 
Christian doc.trine have descended 
to us from remote generations. 
Modern philosophy turns out to 
be only a careful repetition of 
speculations which were indulged 
in by the earliest thinkers. Most 
of the really important objections 
to the Bible were raised by the 
shrewd and cultured antagonists 
whom ancient paganism put for- 
ward as its champions. There 
can< scarcely be a new theory de- 
vised, for the human mind has 
long since gone over the whole 
ground with plowshare and 
rake. Nothing is more instruct- 
ive and' entertaining to the stu- 
dent of Christianity than to recog- 
nize in ancient times the faces 
with which he is familiar in our 
day, although they may be dressed 



56 forgetting, anb 



in different clothes and speak 
another tongue. He will hail 
them as well-known families, and 
will return with the conviction 
that, so far as the religious doubts 
and questionings of the human 
mind are concerned, there was 
some truth in the declaration of 
Solomon, that there is nothing 
new under the sun. 

I do not mean to say that prog- 
ress is not being made in religious 
thought as well as elsewhere. I 
think there is. God's truth is 
being better understood. Gods 
Word is being read more intelli- 
gently. Light is falling from 
many a source and on many a 
fact. Neither do I mean to say 
that these old problems should 
not be considered, if for no other 
reason than that men may be re- 



r 



minded that some of them are 
insoluble by us, and that what we 
do know concerning them may- 
be fairly and wisely stated. But 
I think it clear that they should 
not be allowed to burden us nor 
to keep us back from the perform- 
ance of practical duty. For, 
mark you how progress has been 
made even while these dark ques- 
tionings remained unsolved. 
Jesus and the apostles did not 
attempt to answer these philo- 
sophical questionings which had 
been and would be raised by in- 
quiring minds. They gave us 
certain positive, practical truths, 
and told us to test them by actual 
trial, and obtain the good which 
they would be sure to bring. 
Christianity in later years did not 
triumph by confuting the objec- 



58 fforgettfng, an^ 



tions raised against it on the part 
of culture. It answered many of 
them indeed, but its triumph 
came from the practical religion 
which it introduced, and from the 
effects of faith in Jesus which 
blessed individuals and society. 
So, while the human intellect has 
been wrestling with the giant 
problem of life, the being of God 
has silently been established. 
Overhead has been the battle of 
the elements, as on earth the 
quiet growth of the seed of truth 
which fell from the Master s hand. 
While the Titans have been war- 
ring in the air, the power of God's 
love and the offer of his Gospel 
have been making the world 
better. The laws of Christ have 
been closely applied to human 
conduct ; the beauty and the 



pressing ©nwarD* 



59 



majesty of Jesus have won their 
way to the hearts of millions. 
Thus progress in righteousness, in 
the love of God, and in the prac- 
tical application of the Gospel, 
has gone forward, while these 
profound problems have remained, 
and hover like clouds above the 
fretful world. 

I judge, therefore, that in view 
of these facts it is worth our 
while to forget these doubts and 
questionings. History has proved 
that many of them are both hope- 
lessly dark and have nothing what- 
ever to do with the attainment of 
happiness and peace of mind. 
That they will- ever cease to en- 
gage the attention of some would 
be too much to believe. Every 
new generation will undertake the 
task of settling them. But it will 



6o 



fforoettina, an^ 



soon be glad to leave the task to 
generations following. It is, there- 
fore, not material for a man to 
consider them. There are things 
before him which can be done 
and questionings which can be 
probably solved. His own per- 
sonal Christian duty is as clear as 
sunlight. That Christ is worthy 
of his following is manifest to 
every unperverted mind. That 
men need to have Christ's teach- 
ings taken home to them, and 
that man himself needs to prac- 
tically walk with Christ and do 
his service, the clear facts demon- 
strate. It is worth his while to 
forget those doubts and leave 
those problems unsolved. It is 
not wise to let them burden him 
or keep him back from service. 
Let him leave them behind him. 



and bend his strength to the race- 
track of acknowledged duty, and 
perhaps when he has reached the 
goal he may be in fitter condition 
to deal with them. I am certain 
that then he will thank God that 
he did not let them hold him back 
from the glorious prize. 

II. Again, it is worth our while 
to forget our trials and sorrows, 
through absorption in the pleas- 
ure and gains of Christian work. 
Not everyone by any means can 
do this. Not a few dwell on the 
trials they have had, until they 
become veritable burdens, invisi- 
bly borne on weary shoulders. 
Under the palsy of regret, energy 
for new duties becomes enfeebled. 
Some are embittered by regret, 
fretful under the apparently hard 
ordainments of Providence, carry- 



62 ifotgetttnat anC) 



ing within their mind sour 
thoughts of God and of those 
who are more fortunate, so that 
the world grows dark to them, 
loses its beauty and loveliness, 
and life ends in welcome death. 
Others simply grieve, striving to 
be patient and submissive, but 
knowing not what balm to apply 
to their wounds or where to find 
consolation. Few things are 
sadder than the spectacle of such 
cherishers of bitter memories ; and 
yet how they nurse their regret 
and attach an almost sacred dig- 
nity to their sorrows, and refuse 
to undertake the duties and privi- 
leges which are before them, as 
though fettered by the past. 

On the other hand, it is only 
fair to remark that human nature 
shows marvelous elasticity and 



capacity to forget. The really 
wonderful thing is that men and 
women are so well able to forget 
the trials and sorrows through 
which they pass. When we think 
how heavy these are in nearly 
every life — how bitter the part- 
ings are as we journey along the 
pathway, how much disappoint- 
ment and loss there are in the ex- 
perience of even the more fortu- 
nate—the marvel is that there are 
so many happy faces and that the 
sorrows of humanity are so soon 
forgotten in the enjoyment of 
other things. 

As the vegetation soon springs 
up on the battlefield, as ruined 
houses are transformed into fer- 
tile hillocks, and the plain where 
man and horse rolled in awful 
carnage becomes ere long the 



64 fovQcttirxQ, an5 



harvest field of the farmer, so the 
pains and griefs of human life are 
buried under the new labors and 
pleasures which beckon to them- 
selves the human mind. Thank 
God it is so. He has made us 
thus elastic and self-governing 
that we may not be cast down. 
Otherwise history wiaiild stop, 
and earth become a graveyard ; 
and the fact that this is part of 
our natural constitution indicates 
that it is wise and right to turn 
from even the keenest trial and 
the most sacred grief to the sum- 
mons which the Father brings to 
us to further work. For it is im- 
possible to suppose that these evil 
events are sent to us for their own 
sake. That would be an out- 
rageous impugnment of the good- 
ness and mercy of God, especially 



pressing ©nwar5» 65 



when he has distinctly declared 
that he does not willingly afflict 
or grieve the child of man. They 
are meant to discipline our souls 
— to show us truth more clearly, 
to open to our minds the realities 
of life, and to guide us into the 
ways of thinking and acting which 
are better than those we followed 
before. And if so, then they will 
do their work only when they are 
themselves relatively forgotten in 
the new life to which they intro- 
duce us. 

The gardener prunes the vine 
that it may bring forth more fruit. 
He cuts off useless branches that 
others may replace them, stronger 
and fresher; and the pruning is 
to be forgotten in the ripening 
clusters that are gathered in con- 
sequence of it. The gold is re- 



66 iforaettina, anb 



fined that the alloy may be dis- 
engaged from union with the pre- 
cious metal ; and when the latter 
is purified, its worth far exceeds 
the trial through which it had to 
pass. And who of us cannot 
glean from our own lives illustra- 
tions of a like character ? Look- 
ing back through the mist of years, 
we can recall the failures that at 
the time nearly broke our hearts ; 
losses that nearly crushed us, but 
which it now requires a positive 
effort to remember, so completely 
have they merged into the life for 
which Providence meant them to 
qualify us. Those gloomy days 
were meant to be forgotten. 
They were meant to merge into 
a nobler life. They were like the 
sharp pain of a surgeon s knife — 
the pain soon passes away, but 



prc6Sina ©nwar^♦ 67 



the benefit of it remains. God 
never meant them to linger as 
phantoms in our memories, to 
absorb our thought and claim our 
sole attention. He meant them 
to make us patient, and stronger 
for other tasks, for the doing of 
which this discipline was re- 
quired. 

We should be very careful, 
however, to drown our pains and 
sorrows not in selfish work and 
pleasures, but in Christian work 
and in the joys of Christian serv- 
ice. Let us use no intoxicating 
cup to cover with oblivion our 
troubles and cares. Some plunge 
even into actual dissipation that 
they may kill the sting of mem- 
ory. Others resort to business 
and social pleasures. But then 
the forgetfulness is short-lived and 



68 jforgetttng, ant> 



bitter, and you truly add new- 
causes for further regret in years 
to come. It is worth our while 
to forget our trials and sorrows, 
if we do so by becoming absorbed 
in better living and in Christian 
work. Go out of thyself and 
serve others. Forget thyself in 
thinking of thy fellow-men. 
Reach forth unto the things that 
are before thee. Help the unfor- 
tunate. .Raise : up" the fallen. 
Teach the ignorant. Keep thy 
mind busy with useful thoughts. 
Give thy brain and hand to use- 
ful toil. Forget thy own pains 
and griefs in ministering to those 
which others have. It will then 
indeed be worth thy while to dis- 
miss them from command of thee, 
for they will never be of so much 
use as when they thus stimulate 



IPtessing (inward* 69 



kind and gentle deeds. It is thus 
that thou wilt " find in loss a gain 
to match," and rise on ''stepping 
stones of your dead self to higher 
things." * 

III. So, too, it is worth our 
while to forget pur so-called suc- 
cesses and our earthly reverses by 
absorption in those ends of living 
which Christ has taught us to be 
really good and great. It was in 
this sense particularly that St. Paul 
used our text. The things which 
he forgot were his noble Jewish 
birth, his upright training, his suc- 
cesses and honors in the eyes of 
his fellow-countrymen. Not even 
a Roman was prouder of his birth 
than a Jew was of his. Before 
that young Jew of Tarsus high 
honors rose, ready almost to lay 
themselves at his feet. He at- 



70 



foxQcttirxQ, and 



tained the highest culture which 
his master Gamaliel could give 
him. The way was open for him to 
become a noted man in his nation, 
a leader in Church and State. 
He valued these things. He did 
not toss them from him without 
an effort, but he did toss them 
from him. In the sense in which 
I have explained it, he forgot 
them: ''What things were gain 
to me, these have I counted loss 
for Christ." That he might fol- 
low the truth and serve the Lord, 
he turned his mind away from all 
the honor and gain which the 
Jewish world could offer him. 
He did so absolutely. He did 
not let his mind dwell on the 
sacrifice which he had made. He 
did not repine over his loss. He 
cheerfully and joyfully pursued 



pressing ©uwarD^ 71 



his way of Christian service, and 
never allowed himself to be de- 
terred in it for a moment by any 
thought of the sacrifices which he 
had made, rightly thinking that 
nothing that the whole world could 
give him was worth comparison 
with the prize of the high calling 
of God in Christ Jesus. 

Now, certainly it is harder for 
us to forget the glittering prizes 
which the world offers us than 
anything else. It is hard to per- 
suade ourselves that they are 
really behind us; that we have 
left them in the rear and gone on 
by them to something greater and 
better. They absorb the energy 
of most of us, these imaginary 
piles of glittering dollars that we 
think we see one day ours, these 
famous honors in professional or 



72 fforaettina, and 



public life that we hope one 
day to have. They are the cor- 
ruptible crowns for which the 
majority of men are striving, and 
which fill the souls of millions 
with selfish and sordid thoughts. 
But let the light in on these 
earthly prizes, and how apt they 
are to turn out tinsel and brass I 
Finery that is quite resplendent 
by gaslight often appears tawdry 
and poor in the rays of the morn- 
ing sun. So when the realities of 
life are felt by the soul, when the 
mind's supreme need of truth and 
of the fellowship with God are 
realized, then do the dollars and 
crowns for which this poor world 
struggles seem mean enough to 
awaken the contempt and even 
the hatred of those who have 
been deceived by them. On the 



other hand, the true life which 
Tesus has reveale'd will stand the 
test of the most searching investi- 
gation : when the blazing light 
of eternity* falls on it, -it is still 
found to be real gold. The life 
which follows Christ in doing 
good, which forsakes its own 
pleasure at the call of those in 
need, which loves and v^^orks for 
God — the life which is at harmony 
with God and at peace with its 
fellow-men — that life appears more 
and more beautiful as we try it, 
and its reward more and more 
worthy of our toil. 

I say, therefore, that these pal- 
try things which men call success 
and honor are worth forgetting, if 
their place be taken by those ends 
of living which Christ has taught 
us to be really great and good. 



74 fforaetting, anO 



We need not fret if we lose them ; 
we need not care if we never win 
them. Seeking greater prizes, why- 
should we repine if the baubles 
and tinsel- are not had ? I say to 
you, forget them. Go higher up. 
Seek wisdom and righteousness, 
truth and character. Lay.up treas- 
ures in the heart, and do not be 
bound and limited by fancied good 
which, at the longest, will soon 
fade away. 

IV. Once more, and most 
earnestly of all, do we say that 
it is worth our while to forget 
our old sins and errors, in the 
joy of that forgiveness which God 
has provided to every repentant 
sinner. Forget them? It may 
be impossible wholly to forget 
them. The memory of them will 
sting. Their effects often remain 



pressing ©nwatD. 75 



long after they have been for- 
given. As I have said, Paul did 
not literally forget them. He 
mourned over them to the day of 
his death, and even thought him- 
self the chief of sinners, because 
he had persecuted the Church of 
God. But he did not allow them 
to trouble him any longer, hein- 
ous though his sins had been, for 
God's forgiveness of the repent- 
ant sinner is full and complete. 
He does not receive us on pro- 
bation. He does not promise 
forgiveness hereafter. He offers 
it now. Though your sins be 
as scarlet, they shall be as white 
as snow." He welcomes every 
penitent as the father of the 
prodigal did his wandering boy, 
stopping his confession with the 
kiss of love and saying, " This my 



76 f craettina, anO 



son was dead, and is alive again." 
He forgives and forgets. He 
bears no anger. He keeps no 
malice. He blots out the record 
of our misdeeds. He covers it 
with the merits of his blessed 
Son. 

Surely, then, it is worth our 
while to forget them also. We 
need not be burdened with them. 
So long as we have not repented 
of them, we may well be crushed 
under their load ; but when we 
have cast them upon God, we are 
forever free. Let them go down 
into the pit of eternal oblivion. 
Let there be no phantom rising 
from the grave of buried sins 
to affright us. Looking to the 
Christ, their power is all gone. 
Oh, what a relief this is ! See 
how men are driven by an accus- 



lPre00inG OnwarD^ 77 



ing conscience — longing for de- 
liverance from themselves, since 
in themselves they carry the ex- 
ecutioner of broken law. Hear 
them crying out for waters of 
Lethe to drown the sting of 
memory. Again see them court- 
ing death in the vain hope of 
finding deliverance from their 
shame. But death will bring no 
deliverance to the impenitent. 
Behold Dives ''Son, remember!" 
There a-re no waters of Lethe. 
There is only one way of secur- 
ing peace and forgetfulness— con- 
fession, repentance, and faith in 
Jesus Christ. Then we may for- 
get our sins and errors. Over 
them is sprinkled the atoning 
blood. Justice is satisfied; and 
forgetting the things which are 
behind, reaching forth for the 



LofC. 



78 foxQcttinQ, ant> 



things which are before, we may 
with elastic step and happy hearts 
press toward the mark for the 
prize of the high calling of God 
in Christ Jesus. 

There are, then, some things 
worth forgetting. It is not wise 
nor right to be forever halting 
under the bondage of that which 
Jesus Christ came to destroy. In 
order that we may rise to a higher 
life we must forget the lower. 
Why should we be forever killing 
foes that are already dead, cling- 
ing to the memories of things 
whose purpose has been served, 
dallying with toys when time has 
brought greater prizes to contend 
for, and groaning under sins 
for which Christ has brought 
redemption ? No, let us believe 
and go forward. The future will 



pressina ©nwarD^ 79 



be better than the past. The 
way is open ; on to attainment ! 
forward to the victory ! Make 
Jesus Christ your Saviour. Take 
him altogether, and for all he is. 
Then will the glorious life and 
joy into which he leads us swallow 
up the doubts and fears and sins 
of former days. These will be 
forgotten in the enjoyment of 
God's loving mercy and guiding 
hand. I plead with you to take 
these truths to heart. Turn your 
face heavenward. Go forward to 
the Promised Land. Break your 
fetters and live for the new things 
which God hath prepared for 
those that love him. 



"UNTILTHE DAY DAWN. 



" The things which are not seen an eternal** 
~i Corinthians 4 : 18. 



"UNTIL THE DAY DAWN." 



Awake, my soul! The eternal day is 
breaking, 

The darkness of the world is pierced 
with lights, 
And rays, prophetic of the morn's 
arising. 

Already gleam far up the eastern 
heights. 

The day of painless life and tireless vigor, 
The day of widening knowledge of the 
best, 

The day when earth's deceits and adum- 
brations 

Shall change into the truth in glory 
dressed. 



84 ''mntil tbe Ba^ Dawn/' 



O soul of mine, let not dull sleep 
bewitch thee; 
Let not the gilded fantasies of sense 
Cause thee to slumber when heaven's 
light is shining, 
And God's dear voice is summoning 
thee hence. 

Thine earthly life is but a preparation 
For grander toil and never-ending joys. 
Thou wast not meant to find it satisfac- 
tory, 

Its keenest sorrows are its broken 
toys. 

Already has thine opening eye caught 
vision 

Of things more real, of gladness more 
profound. 

When, through the rupture of this earth's 
relations. 

The voice of God and truth has uttered 
sound. 

Then bend thy gaze to the predestined 
future. 

Anticipate the life that draweth nigh; 



'*mntil tbe Dap 2)awn/' 85 



Awake, my soul, and contemplate the 
portion 

Of those whose lot is fixed with Christ 
on high. 

Think of the seed that bloometh into 
flower; 

Think of the thought that shapes itself 
in deed; 

Think of the chaos ordered into beauty; 
Think of the Child that for the world 
did bleed. 

Mark what portentous prophecies of 
power 

All these suggest as thine intended 
goal, 

When day, now breaking, shall at last 
be entered 
And the grand promise shall itself 
unroll. 

Soul! let the voice of Christ, thy sure 
Forerunner, 
Summon thee now into the heavenly 
life. 



86 '*ianttl tbe H)ai5 Dawn/* 



Soon shall the brightness of the day flow 
o'er thee, 

Soon peace shall end thy bitter earthly 
strife. 

Thine are these mansions; thine the 
Father's bosom; 
Thine the high paths that sinless feet 
have trod. 

Thine is to be the light that faileth 
never, 

The endless life of fellowship with 
God. 

December 29, 1895. 



THE TEACHER AND 
PASTOR. 

From President F. L. Patton's address at the 
funeral of Dr. Purves. 

We all felt the terrible shock when 
word came to us on Wednesday morning 
that Dr. Purves had died suddenly the 
night before. We knew that he was suf- 
fering under an acute attack and that 
in recent months he had been subject to 
such attacks, but we did not suppose 
that his illness was of a nature that was 
likely to prove fatal. 

This congregation, the First Presby- 
terian Church of Princeton, the Prince- 
ton Theological Seminary, and Princeton 
University have sustained a great loss. 
All connected with these institutions 
feel that they have suffered a personal 
bereavement, for Dr. Purves had a 
singular power of laying hold upon 



88 Ubc XTeacber anb pastor. 



the affections of those to whom he stood 
related. 

We admired him as a preacher and as a 
teacher. We were impressed with his 
goodness and with the genuineness of 
his religious life, but, beyond all that, 
we loved him as a man. The story of 
his life is familiar to us all. He was 
born in the city of Philadelphia on the 
27th of February, 1852. After gradu- 
ating at the University of Pennsylvania, 
he entered Princeton Theological Semi- 
nary, remaining there after the comple- 
tion of his curriculum for a year of grad- 
uate study. 

It was during this year in Princeton 
that he came under the quickening in- 
fluence of his great friend and teacher, 
the beloved Dr. Caspar Wistar Hodge, 
and that he acquired that taste for New 
Testament study which he so assiduously 
cultivated during his two pastorates in 
Baltimore and Pittsburg, and which 
ended in his being the unanimous choice 
of the directors of the Princeton Theo- 
logical Seminary as the successor of Dr. 
Hodge. 



xrbe XTeacbet anb pastor* 89 



It was a matter of great doubt to him 
and to his friends whether he should give 
up the pulpit to take the professor's 
chair, for he had singular qualifications 
for both positions. He was an eloquent 
preacher, and his services were especially 
acceptable to young men, who came in 
throngs to hear him on Sunday evenings. 

He also had special qualifications as 
a teacher. He was a ripe scholar, and 
what was a very important factor in the 
case, he knew, as few men know, how to 
show the bearing of accurate, minute 
exegetical study of the Bible to the ser- 
vice of the pulpit. These facts, added 
to his warmth of temperament, gave 
him great facility in dealing with theo- 
logical students. 

None who had the privilege of being 
his pupil will ever forget his hospitality. 
His house was their home, and they were 
always welcomed to his table. Many a 
young minister in the service of the 
church to-day will recall his relations to 
Di". Purves, and the hospitality of his 
home, as the brightest memory of his 
seminary days. 



90 Ube XUeacber auD ipastor. 



It is rare that we find a man equally 
capable to do the work of the pulpit and 
the professor's chair. And while each 
sphere furnishes ample opportunities for 
anyone, still, in rare cases, it is perhaps 
well to allow those who are fitted to do 
so to fill both positions. When, there- 
fore, Dr. Purves, as stated supply to the 
First Presbyterian Church of Princeton, 
and afterwards its pastor, added the 
duties of the pulpit to those of his pro- 
fessorship, it was felt to be advantageous 
to the best interests of all concerned. 

During his life in Princeton he had 
frequent invitations from prominent 
churches to become their pastor, but he 
declined. Through all, I believe, he felt 
that his heart was in the work of his 
chair, and that with a diial position of 
pastor and professor, he had the widest 
scope for the exercise of his best powers, 
and the fullest opportunity for the reali- 
zation of his highest ambitions. I think 
I do not misrepresent him when I say it. 
But when the pulpit of this church be- 
came vacant, the eyes of the congregra- 
tion turned to him. Occupying a fore- 



most place in the denomination to which 
it belongs, it called for a strong man 
who could administer with great ability 
its affairs and maintain the high standard 
of spiritual preaching set by Dr. James 
W. Alexander, Dr. Rice, and Dr. Hall. 

You made no mistake, my dear friends, 
when you felt that the one man to fill 
this vacant place in the American pulpit, 
and to be added to his great succession, 
was Dr. Purves. We were loath to have 
him leave Princeton, and there were 
some, perhaps, who were never satisfied 
respecting the wisdom of his decision, 
but most of us thought that the interests 
of the Church at large transcended all 
local interests, and that they would be 
best subserved by his acceptance of its 
call. He entered upon the duties here 
with enthusiasm. His heart and his 
head were enlisted' to their utmost efforts 
in the work of thjs church, and he soon 
found himself absorbed in the many reli- 
gious and philanthropic enterprises that 
consume the time and exhaust the energy 
of ministers of large churches in great 
cities. I do not think he worked harder 



92 ubc Ucacbcv ant) ipastor* 



in New York than he did in Princeton, 
for Dr. Purves was a man who did with 
all his might what his hands found to do. 

One rarely finds a man with such 
capacity for hard work and varied work. 
When he sustained the dual relation of 
pastor and professor in Princeton, he 
never allowed the duties of one sphere 
of labor to be an excuse for slighting the 
other sphere of labor. He was always 
up to date in the literature of his depart- 
ment, notwithstanding the exacting calls 
of his parish. Nor did he find an easy 
mode of preparation for the pulpit by 
giving his theological lectures a homi- 
letical form. Indeed I sometimes thought 
it would have been well if he had brought 
some of his New Testament studies into 
the pulpit. This was Dr. Hodge's method, 
and his sermons were all studies in bibli- 
cal theology; but Dr. Purves, though al- 
ways a preacher to whom theological 
students listened with delight for hours, 
was not distinctively a preacher to theo- 
logical students. He was very compre- 
hensive and varied in his range of topics 
for the pulpit, and was equally accept- 



Ube Ueacbet auD pastor* 93 



able to the undergraduates of the uni- 
versity and to the men and women who 
constitute the congregations of great 
cities. 

We cannot understand Dr. Purves as 
a preacher or as teacher unless we know 
him as a man. He had a warm heart; he 
had a keen eye, a good memory for names 
and faces. He seemed to know more 
people in Princeton than anyone else. 
He never loitered or dreamed; he was 
alert, active, energetic, interested in all 
good work. The movements of his mind, 
like those of his body, were quick. He 
was religious without being austere, just 
as he was companionable without being 
worldly. He touched human life at a 
great many points. As a New Testa- 
ment specialist, it was his business to be 
familiar with the literature and progress of 
the Apostolic period. How much he had 
made himself master of that period his 
"Apostolic Age * will testify. But he 
had a wider range of thought than that. I 
have heard him preach Thanksgiving ser- 
mons that involved much thought, the re- 
* Apostolic Age. Scribner's, 1900. 



94 Ubc Ucacbcv ant) pastor. 



suit of much reading and clear thinking 
upon political science. While he was far 
from being disposed to allow sociology to 
supersede theology, yet he recognized 
that the Gospel had great bearing on 
social questions, and he was deeply in- 
terested in all sociological movements. 

But when we judge him as a teacher, 
we must judge him rather by his influ- 
ence upon the minds of his pupils than 
by the products of his pen, scholarly and 
creditable as they always were. For in 
a department that is so full of activity 
as that of New Testament literature, it 
is only by incessant study that one can 
do much original work. 

A great teacher cannot always be an 
author, and a great author is not always 
the best teacher. Dr. Turves, as all his 
students will testify, was a great teacher, 
and by common consent he held, and is 
recognized as having held, a foremost 
place in the American pulpit. He was 
not a controversial preacher. He was 
not a theological preacher. He was not 
a literary preacher, though he had com- 
mand of a finished style. Philosophy 



Uhc ^eacber anb pastor. 95 



had little place in his sermons, and he 
made no use of the sensational topics of 
the day.- "He ' was eloquent rather than 
brilliant. ^ His sermons were always 
spiritual. They were compactly, sys- 
tematically organized, with no parade of 
logic. Of no one could it be more 
truly said than of him, that his coming: 
among you was not with the wisdom of 
enticing words of man's pleasing, but in 
demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 
and that he determined to know nothing 
among you save Jesus Christ a nd him 
crucified. He was not ashamed of the 
Gospel of Christ, believing it to be the 
power of God and the wisdom of God 
unto salvation. 

I have spoken of Dr. Purves as I knew 
him. I have spoken of him in reference 
to his wide relations, because I believe 
that he belongs to the church at large, 
but I do not forget that the special 
grief of this occasion falls upon this 
bereaved congregation. He was a great 
preacher, but he was more than that, he 
was a great pastor. How comforting he 
was to the bereaved; how prompt he was 



96 Zbc Ueacber anC> pastor* 



to visit the sick; how uplifting and ten- 
der his prayers; how precious the com- 
munion seasons which you and I and 
others in Princeton and elsewhere have 
enjoyed under his ministrations! 

There are men who are great in the 
pulpit, but who find the obligations of 
the pulpit are such that they leave them 
no time for pastoral visitation. There 
are men who are great in other spheres 
who give their best efforts to the reviews 
and journals, and give what time is left 
to the pulpit. Dr. Purves gave his best 
to his congregation — heart and soul and 
spirit he gave to them. 

And now that he is gone, it is with a 
full consciousness of our loss that we 
mourn him. The loss is ours, not his. 
Our hearts bleed for those who are left 
behind. We raise anxious questions, 
when men like him are called away, as to 
who shall fill the vacant place. But we 
do not murmur. For him to live was 
Christ and to die was gain. 



DEC 24 1901 



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DEC. 24 t90l 



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